


never been afraid of anything

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pre-Canon, Reverse Chronology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 10:49:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18689986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: Ben was the last of them to separate from the Army, spending his last year in hunting Afghan insurgents nearly alone in the rugged landscape, with a radio and his rifle. By the end, he's even leaner than before, and feels something close to what he might labelferal. There's a rawness in his chest that he sees reflected on his face when he finally looks in a mirror to shave for the first time in months.





	never been afraid of anything

"This place is still a shithole, Red," Ben calls, in an attempt to get Tom riled up, once Tom's yelled that the apartment door's open and Ben's nudged it open with his boot. There's a neat stack of folded shirts on one of the cushions of the sagging couch, a pile of newspapers on a chair - Ben's done plenty of time in worse, he just likes giving Tom shit, even though Tom's not easy to ruffle. "Looks worse than my dorm from when I tried going to college."

"Fuck off, Benny," Tom replies; it sounds to Ben like he's in the kitchen. It's not a big apartment: tiny kitchen, tiny living area barely large enough for the couch, tiny bedroom with boxes still stacked up. Ben's been here a couple times since Tom found the place. "You flunked out of college."

Ben rounds the corner to see Tom washing off one of the two plates he owns, and shrugs off the college comment. He did drop out. He drums his fingertips on the peeling wall and says, "Want to get a drink?"

"Yeah, alright," Tom says, shaking off the water running down his wrists, not that Ben's looking right now. He gives the plate a cursory dry-off, then tosses the dishtowel back on the counter. "Like I want to sit around in this shithole anyway."

Ben laughs easily at that and swoops in to tap his elbow lightly against Tom's side, then puts a hand on his own chest and says, "I'm definitely easier on the eyes, and you don't buy my brand besides."

"Buy it yourself."

"I will. Put your fucking shoes on. How can you stand to walk on this floor without shoes? Fuck."

"Fuck off, Benny," Tom replies in the same tone, and Ben's pleased to know the words are easy, meaningless, that _fuck off_ is really just another term of endearment after all these years. 

The place down the block is basically their local by now. It's smaller than both their apartments and there's always a haze of cigarette smoke in front of the door, unavoidable. Ben quit smoking years ago but just walking in the place makes his fingers itch to hold a cig, just for a second. Tom always gives him a look like he knows what Ben's thinking. Almost everyone smoked in-country, for something to do. Sometimes just to cover up the smell of something worse. 

Squeezing into the tiny, dim room, Ben raises his hand to catch Nico's eye behind the bar, and feels the heat from Tom's body, directly behind him. "Fucking move up, would you?" Tom murmurs in his ear, and a hand brushes like a ghost over his back. Ben angles and shuffles around the other patrons until he sees an empty two-seater in the far corner. The fan turning lazily overhead is barely enough to make a breeze; he feels sweat slipping down the back of his neck. Sometimes he wonders if they don't come here because it reminds them both of a different sweltering shack of a bar in the stinking armpit of some other sweltering country. 

And the beer is cheap.

Tom veers off, comes back with two wet bottles of the local, condensation already dripping off the bottoms. They settle in the corner as Nico yells at someone else to roll open the garage-style door that takes up most of the building's face, and as the noise of the street increases, the slightly cooler evening air starts to seep in. 

The path to intoxication was long ago laid out for the both of them, each beer another hundred feet down the road. Nico puts UFC on the television above the bar and they watch a few rounds, eating pretzels from a plastic bowl. Ben appreciates that Tom doesn't try to talk much while they drink, that the silence is comfortable and normal, and as familiar as the taste of the beer in his mouth. 

"Sure you don't want to get tattoos like that guy?" Tom asks after a while, waving a pretzel at the current fight. 

"You don't like the blank slate?" Ben replies, giving Tom a lazy grin before taking another swallow of his beer. "Besides," he continues, jerking his chin at the row of Chinese characters marching down Miocic's spine, "that fucking hurts."

"You get a fucking fist to the face like, once a week. And I know that shit -" Tom points at the screen, "is closer to a scratch. You can't tell me that bullshit on your arm actually hurt."

"Whatever, man."

Tom grins at that. "You want another?"

"Fucking yeah."

Part of why they come here is that it's a five minute walk from Ben's place, a ten minute walk from Tom's. As long as they're both not so drunk that they can't put one foot in front of another, it's good. And he likes Tom like this - a little looser, a little less worried, his mind no longer trying to think about eighteen things at once. With the application of enough alcohol, Ben can usually narrow Tom's thought processes down to one or two or three, and one of those is usually focused on getting Ben's jeans open. Less stress, and they both get laid. A win-win.

Unless one of them has two or three (once, five) too many, and Tom had laughed softly and tiredly into Ben's ear as Ben lay there, barely awake and dizzy - throbbing, almost - with too much alcohol, while Tom jerked off onto his belly, then cleaned him up. 

It's… not a bad memory at all, when Ben reflects on it. 

A part of him is always waiting, coiled at the ready, for Tom to tell him what they're doing is fucking stupid and that they should stop. For Tom to say he's plotted this thing out and how's it going to end, really, one of them realizing this is not as convenient as thought, or for Tom to say he's met someone he'd like to attempt an actual relationship with, and not just drunken sex in the dark of a shitty apartment while both their breath and their hands smell like beer. 

Or worse, tequila.

Tom slides a fresh bottle into Ben's waiting grip, then sits down again with his own.

*

"It happens," Tom says to Ben, in a carefully neutral voice and with a shrug of his broad shoulders, when Ben sees the divorce papers on top of the short stack of boxes they have yet to organize.

"It's not because you and I fooled around, is it?" 

Tom pauses his digging in the box he's unpacking to look up at Ben, his eyes wide like he thought maybe they weren't ever going to talk about it, or maybe like he thought Ben forgot. He shakes his head. "Molly'd already kicked me to the couch by then."

Ben's caught between wanting to know the reason for that, and wanting to ask if maybe Tom wants to fool around again. He settles on unwrapping the newspaper from around the juice glasses that Tom clearly picked up at a Goodwill. Once he's washed, dried, and put them away in a cabinet, he asks, "You have to have the place done up so the girls can come over?"

"Not right now." Tom says it in such a way that Ben stalls out on his follow-up query about if they should try to get everything unpacked tonight.

"Sorry, buddy," he murmurs instead.

"Is what it is." Tom picks up one of the remaining boxes and carries it into the bedroom; Ben can see the shadow of him through the doorway, hear the heavy scraping sound of the cheap IKEA dresser being moved from one wall to another. When Tom comes back, he looks at Ben and asks, "You want to fuck around tonight?"

"Hell yeah."

"Help me carry the coffee table in from my truck first."

Ben laughs at that. "Should've known you had an ulterior motive."

The coffee table is a square and unwieldy thing, not so much heavy as simply awkward to get around the corners in the stairwells without two people maneuvering. They get it set down in front of Tom's beat-up old couch, the one Ben remembers as being in the basement of the house Tom had shared with Molly and the girls. One of the cushions sags more noticeably than the other.

Then Tom reaches out and grabs a fistful of Ben's shirt, right at his hip, not so much a tug as the suggestion of one. Ben gives him a lazy grin and gets a hand on Tom's thigh, squeezes the thick muscle. "You got plans?" he asks, digging fingertips into the denim of Tom's jeans. "A flat surface?"

Tom scoffs, then jerks his head backwards in the direction of the bedroom where, presumably, there's a bed of some sort. Ben has a very sharp and heady sense memory of the last time (the first time), his body remembering how _heavy_ Tom's touch felt, as opposed to every woman he's slept with. He's used to following Tom's lead; following it now feels no different. 

There's no light in the bedroom beyond the pale square that shines in from the sidewalk lamp outside the window. It's enough for Ben to make out the lines of Tom's body, but he could probably do this in the pitch black if he had to. Tom sits down on the bottom edge of the bed, pulls Ben with him, sets his teeth to Ben's neck as Ben shudders at the sharp press. 

"Tommy," he breathes, kneading his hands into Tom's shoulders. He still feels a hot flush rise every time he calls Tom that, but he relishes in the feeling now, just as he appreciates the tightening of Tom's hands on his hips. 

"Get my cock out, Benny," Tom murmurs in reply. 

They're close enough that Ben doesn't have enough room to get Tom's belt open without one of them moving, so he slides down onto the shabby carpet, hands pressed to Tom's body as he goes. Tom makes a quiet, indecipherable noise as Ben makes quick work of the various fastenings, and his hand lifts to push through Ben's hair, longer than it was six months ago. He can't grow it out too long, can't leave something for an opponent to grab in the ring, but he used to buzz it all off and sometimes he thinks he looks like an entirely different man in the mirror now.

Maybe it's fitting, given what they're doing, that difference. He doesn't think he'll ever _get used_ to going down on a dude, but the feel of, and the sound of, Tom getting more and more worked up is satisfying. He gets a good, slow rhythm going, sucks Tom's cock until his jaw starts to ache, then past that. His eyes start to water at the burn. "You can -," Tom says, losing the words after that; Ben feels Tom's hand on his cheek, easing him back. His mouth is raw now. He fits his hand around Tom's length and jerks him the rest of the way.

"Fuck, Benny," Tom gasps, winded, his voice scratchy and low. 

Ben grins. It makes his mouth feel stranger.

Tom grabs his shirt and pulls him up onto the bed. He manhandles Ben halfway underneath his bigger frame, and opens Ben's shorts in one long move that's made smoother, Ben knows, by his lack of resistance. Ben doesn't want to resist. Tom's touch is firm and confident, and his hands are warm where they slide up under Ben's shirt. Ben presses his face into the pillow, and it smells faintly of Tom's occasional aftershave lotion and cologne.

"Gonna make you feel good," Tom murmurs in his ear, slipping his hand into Ben's briefs, running his fingers lightly over Ben's cock. Ben squirms despite himself - he's been trained better than this, he can hold still when he has to. 

Tom continues, with his breath hot and damp against Ben's skin, "You can move," like he knows exactly what Ben's thinking. Ben shimmies his shorts down, enough for Tom to free his cock, and looks down to watch Tom's hand wrapped around his length. 

"Wait," he says, and Tom freezes, his gaze snapping to Ben's, "no, I mean - not fuckin' stop, just - is kissing okay?"

He doesn't say, _It better be, since I just sucked your dick,_ but Tom must read it on his face, because he smirks and leans in. His face is stubbled, but so is Ben's, and Ben has a fleeting second of thinking _scratchy_ before Tom's mouth is pressed to his. Ben gasps into it as Tom pulls on his cock again. For a second after that, Ben can't breathe, and his head swims and his pulse trips. "Fuck."

"It's what you wanted, right?" Tom asks, laughing warmly, before he sets his teeth against Ben's throat and scrapes.

*

Ben was the last of them to separate from the Army, spending his last year in hunting Afghan insurgents nearly alone in the rugged landscape, with a radio and his rifle. By the end, he's even leaner than before, and feels something close to what he might label _feral_. There's a rawness in his chest that he sees reflected on his face when he finally looks in a mirror to shave for the first time in months.

"Fucking hell, man," Billy says when he sees Ben standing in the parking lot at Benning. 

"Look great, don't I?" Ben asks, then hugs his brother. It feels so good to touch someone in a positive way that something wrenches hard inside of him, and tears well up in his eyes, hot and fast. Billy squeezes his shoulders hard and nods, and Ben knows he gets it.

"Come on, the Captain's waiting to get drunk with us," Billy says, picking up Ben's ruck for him. "Shit, how much ammo did you smuggle out? This weighs a fucking ton."

Ben laughs, and the muscle movement is so unfamiliar that his whole body aches for a second. "Everything I could get my hands on."

He's got no place to go, but Billy's apartment is a two-bedroom, and he says Ben can stay as long as he wants to, or needs to. "Pope's gone native down south somewhere," Billy says, standing in the doorway of the spare room as Ben does push-ups on the floor, "but Redfly's still in town, and Fish is just over in Macon with the new wife."

There's a tangible pause, so Ben glances up, and Billy shakes his head before he adds, "Red and Molly are having some trouble, so if he's..."

"So if he's a mess, don't push it," Ben finishes, jumping to his feet, and starting his round of burpees on the milk crate.

"Fucking get a gym membership, will you?" Billy says, then slaps the doorframe with his hand and goes off to do something else. 

Ben's at the gym two weeks before one of the trainers asks if he'd be interested in the fights. "Octagon draws a good crowd," the trainer - Ben thinks his name is Mike or Mark or maybe Marco - tells him. "You military guys don't usually need to pick up a whole lot of the moves, either. And it pays. More once you win a few."

Ben wins all his practice rounds. Then he wins his first bout in the cage. He takes a good few shots to the torso, knows he'll bruise up later, but he's so high on the feeling of his own fists and feet and elbows connecting that the blood is nearly singing his veins. At the bar with Red afterward, he looks down at his hands, flexing his sore fingers, and says, "It felt good."

"It looked good." Tom waves Nico over, orders himself a beer and Ben several shots. 

"You miss it?" Ben asks. He looks up, meeting Tom's gaze, and knows Tom will understand the question. 

"Every day," Tom answers, not breaking eye contact. Ben feels better knowing he's not alone, and tips the whisky down his throat. 

The weeks past separation turn into months. Ben gets his own shoebox of an apartment in Columbus. He spends more time at the gym, starts giving boxing lessons to teenagers, fights every Friday night with Billy in his corner. Red makes most of them, and Fish shows up when he can, and when it's the four of them they end up staying out too late and reminiscing too much. Those nights, Ben can feel Billy keeping an eye on him, and when Billy isn't, Redfly is. Tom stays a little closer than Ben would tolerate from most people, a warm shadow, quick to catch Ben when he gets drunk enough to stumble. Ben doesn't mind; likes it even, somehow it feels the same to him as when he'd make a good move out on an op and the Captain would shout in his ear, "You did good, Benny," over the beat of the helicopter's blades. 

Tom always calls the next day, without fail. "Hangover, Benny?"

"Nah, too hard for that shit," Ben replies. He's got his cell on speaker, on the bathroom counter while he looks at the bruises that have come up, judging what he should tape, if anything. Nothing looks like it needs it this time. The one under his armpit hurts, but only when he presses on it.

Tom's voice echoes in the small space. "You got plans tonight?"

"Not fucking fighting tonight, if that's what you mean." It usually takes him the weekend to recover from getting the shit kicked out of him. He grabs his t-shirt from where it's hanging on the doorknob and pulls it over his head. "You want to come over here?" he asks. "Could eat my weight in General Tso's, I think. Bring a bottle."

"I'll bring a couple." 

Ben orders the food; Tom arrives half an hour later with a bottle of whisky and a case of cheap beer straight from the cooler. He hands Ben a can before unloading the rest into Ben's loudly humming refrigerator. "There's soccer on," Ben says, popping the tab.

"Shit, I haven't kept up."

The food arrives not long after. It was quick, and he tips the skinny teenager probably more than warranted. They put it all on Ben's thrift store coffee table, rip open the paper wrappers on the chopsticks, and trade boxes back and forth. Ben barely bothers with the rice. Somehow this place fries up the chicken pieces in such a way that they stay super crispy even in the sauce, and they make it spicier than most. He's glad for the beer.

They watch Sevilla FC steamroll over HD Huesca, and open the whisky once most of the food is gone. Ben gets closer to wasted the longer the match lasts, gets right in that space where everything feels loose and weightless. He loves that feeling. He sinks lower and lower on the couch until he's nearly horizontal instead of vertical. "All right, Benny?" Tom asks, amusement in his voice.

"I feel good."

"I'm glad." Tom's hand finds his shoulder, squeezes, doesn't move. "Booze aside, you feeling okay?"

"I miss it," Ben says, the words in his mouth and then out before he even thinks them. "Combat. My guns. Being in that… zone. I know that much adrenaline ain't good for you but, fuck. It sure felt good in the moment." 

Fighting gets close; he can ride that knife's edge for a while, but it ends when the fight ends. 

"I'm getting some water, you want anything?" He unfolds himself from the sofa, goes into the kitchen. He's filling a glass at the sink when Tom steps up behind him, and presses his hand exactly to the bruise on Ben's ribs.

"Fuck," Ben hisses, nearly dropping the glass.

"How's that for getting your heart racing?" Tom asks, mouth level with Ben's ear, the words quiet. His hands move in long strokes over Ben's torso, then press against the bruises again. Ben feels his knees start to shake. "Got the blood really pumping now? Does it help?"

Ben groans despite himself. He feels like the blood is nearly singing in his veins right now. Breathing almost hurts; a thing he knows ordinary people don't enjoy, but it reminds him he's _alive_. 

Tom slides his hand around to press against Ben's belly for a second, then down, over the front of his jeans, and Ben's cock pulses hot. He feels dizzy, head spinning, even more than from just the alcohol. Tom's leaned up against him from behind, so he's pinned between Tom's broad chest and the flat heat of his palm pressed to Ben's cock. There's so little space and everything feels hot and sticky, like the jungle again. "Just rub against my hand, that's it," Tom breathes in his ear, and Ben's hips jerk of their own volition. "Like that, Benny."

He grinds forward against Tom's hand, his own hands trying to gain purchase on the smooth inside edge of the sink, the glass of water forgotten. Tom's fingers flex occasionally, always pushing on a different spot, pressure against the inside of Ben's thigh, or the underside of his balls. After a minute, Ben groans and widens his stance, and Tom leans against him harder. 

He's drunk enough that he doesn't care about jizzing in his clothes, curling partway over the sink and rutting against the press of Tom's hand until he comes, a half-whining noise escaping his mouth. Even as part of his brain notices the wetness and wants to protest, the rest of his attention is instead on Tom's hand squeezing his hips with some strength, then sliding up his spine to push Ben further over the sink. "Say something if you want me to stop," Tom murmurs, and Ben shakes his head.

His shirt is rucked up, nearly to his armpits. Tom's hands graze lightly over the bruises again and Ben sucks in a sharp breath, his whole body tensing for a moment until Tom drags a slow palm down over his spine, fingertips mapping the vertebrae. Then he hears the zip on Tom's khakis, followed by the unmistakable sound of a man jerking off. 

"Fuck, Tom," he sighs, resting his burning cheek against the cool metal of the sink's edge. "Yeah, do it."

He only catches some of what Tom says next, thanks to the alcohol and the orgasm still thrumming through him, something about the stretch of Ben's back, maybe. Tom doesn't make a sound when he comes, only the tightening of a hand on Ben's waist warns him, followed by what takes him a few seconds to figure out is some wetness on his lower back. "You…" is all he manages to say.

"I'll wipe it off, hang on a fucking second." Tom touches one of the bruises, lightly, and Ben twitches, then sighs, still mostly relaxed against the sink. He sees Tom grab the roll of paper towel off the counter, then hears the sound of it tearing. There's a gentle swipe over his skin. He tugs his t-shirt back down and stands up, turning to see Tom looking like normal, his pants already zipped up.

"I think there's some dumplings left," Tom says, after Ben blinks at him a little woozily for a moment. He takes a can of beer from the fridge and presses it to the hinge of his jaw, his ear, his neck. "You all right?"

"You didn't grab me one," Ben replies almost stupidly, pointing at the can.

"Get your own." Tom pops the tab, walking into the other room and drinking deeply all at once. Ben shifts his weight, grimacing, then rolls his shoulders back. He should probably not sit back down on the couch and pick up his chopsticks to fight Tom for the last couple dumplings, given the state he's in. He should probably change. 

"You fuckin' die in there or what?" Tom calls. 

Yeah. Change first, but leave a beer for himself on the table.

**Author's Note:**

> So after I got past the part where this movie made me, personally, a Ben Affleck fan of close to twenty years now, watch THAT happen, I then thought "wait is Benny crying? oh hell I 'ship this now," and it was basically all downhill from there. 
> 
> Please feel free to DM me on tumblr or send an email/find me on twitter (that info is all in my bio) if you also need to fall on the floor and cry about this movie. Plus I need people to either talk me out of or talk me into writing daddykink, so...


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